Three Emperors (9780062194138) Read Online Free PDF Page A

for the slow-witted.”
    He scowled, but he had a soldier’s familiarity with abuse, and I was relief from the boredom of standing guard. He took my pewter flask warily, glancing about lest a supervisor see him drinking.
    â€œA big swallow, to allow the flavors to come through.”
    He nodded, threw his head back, drank, squinted, and grimaced. “What in Hades? It tastes like piss!”
    â€œSwish it in your mouth, like wine.”
    The idiot did so. Then his eyes bulged and he reeled, staggering backward. I’d expected a sentry, and needed something to put one on his back. The guard opened his mouth to bellow, and nothing came out, since his tongue had turned to stone. I helped things along with a rap to his temple from the butt of my broken broadsword, and then graciously helped him down.
    My Moroccan spice peddler had sold me more than opium seeds. The hairs of the Mediterranean’s processionary caterpillar are more venomous than nettles and cause tissues to swell almost to the point of suffocation. I’d bought a snuff tin’s worth of the creatures, carried them ashore in Venice, and added their remains to some limoncello. The man gasped blindly, incapacitated but alive. I left him to it.
    A minute’s investigation revealed that the paneling he’d eyed indeed had a concealed door, its latch behind some books on a case. This led to a secret spiral stone staircase that climbed to a floor with lower ceilings and tighter rooms. I wound down a passageway to an apartment that would overlook the canal, hearing romantic moaning and chuffing within. Normally I respect privacy, but not when I’ve been cheated. I picked the lock with a twist of a copper nail I’d brought, slipped inside, latched the heavy entry behind me, and quietly braced a heavy chair against it. Then I crept.
    A sitting room first, and then a boudoir in blue, with Chinese basin and feminine combs. The bedchamber beyond was where the noise was coming from.
    Two candles and the coals of a fireplace cast yellow light on a sumptuous bedroom with maple armoire and marble mantel. My eye was drawn to the four-poster canopied bed. Richter galloped against Countess Nahir’s well-sculpted derriere, the baron still dressed in evening shirt and silk breeches, unbuttoned only for the part in vigorous use. Must be in a terrible hurry, which is seldom a good idea. Even more oddly, he still wore his ivory-colored mask with its painted smirk, giving a mechanical look to the proceedings. Nonetheless, the lady’s translucent chemise was pulled up to her waist, and she matched the rhythm just as lustily, with encouraging noises. Lady Nahir clearly was not waiting for her husband’s return from his travels. A bedside candle silhouetted the glory of her form.
    The tableau was arousing, but not as much as the small iron chest I spotted on an inlaid table. It was just the kind of treasure box to contain Richter’s cheatings from the game. I’d hoped the baron would simply be asleep, but the lovers seemed preoccupied enough for me to retrieve my share anyway.
    So I advanced on all fours, kneeled at the table, eased out the old sword, and used the jagged edge of its broken blade to jimmy the latch. The lid opened to a pleasing pile of gold and silver coins. I began easing the plunder into my empty leather purse, heart hammering as its weight increased.
    Alas, Richter and Nahir were people of the casino, their ears attuned to the clink of money. She swiveled her head to gasp warning, her lovely hair flying like a flag, and the baron quickly disengaged. “Like a fly to sweets,” Richter said calmly. He pulled a pistol from under a pillow and rapped a bell on the wall with the muzzle. It gonged with doom. “I’d almost given up waiting for you, Gage.” He hauled up his breeches with one hand and pointed the gun at me with the other.
    I had frozen in surprise. This Bohemian noble knew who I really was?